1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image forming apparatus and a control method and a storage medium therefor, and more particularly, to an image forming apparatus capable of obtaining print data from an external apparatus by utilizing information that identifies the print data, a control method for the image forming apparatus, and a storage medium storing a program for executing the control method.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, there is an image forming apparatus configured to immediately print print data (print job) received from an information processing apparatus such as a PC. Thus, if, for example, a user is not around the image forming apparatus, a printed product printed by the image forming apparatus is sometimes left unpicked. To obviate this, an image forming apparatus has been proposed that is configured not to immediately print received print data but to print the print data after user authentication.
For example, in an image processing apparatus of a printing system disclosed in Japanese Laid-open Patent Publication No. 2010-211627, when print data with a user ID is received from an information processing apparatus, the print data is stored and document information that identifies the print data is generated and registered to a bibliographic server. At the time of printing the print data, if the print data can be printed by the image processing apparatus itself, the image processing apparatus transmits a document information obtaining request to the bibliographic server together with the user ID and receives from the bibliographic server and displays a document information list corresponding to the user ID. When print data to be printed is selected from the displayed list by the user, the image forming apparatus prints the selected print data. On the other hand, if the print data cannot be printed by the image processing apparatus itself, the image processing apparatus suspends a printing process. An alternative printing process is performed by another image processing apparatus.
If the image processing apparatus of the printing system described above is configured not to store received print data when registration of document information of the received print data to the bibliographic server has failed, there is a fear that the print data cannot be printed by the image processing apparatus that received the print data. It is therefore preferable that the image processing apparatus be configured to store print data even when the registration of document information has failed.
However, with the image processing apparatus configured in that way, document information of print data is not present in the bibliographic server when registration of the document information has failed, so that the print data still cannot be printed by another image processing apparatus. In a case, for example, that the image processing apparatus that received the print data is currently in use by another user, the image processing apparatus cannot request another image processing apparatus to perform alternative printing, so that the user must wait for his/her turn.
In an image forming apparatus configured to print print data after user authentication to thereby prevent a printed product from being left unpicked, print data received by the image forming apparatus is sometimes set with a storage time limit. In that case, the storage time limit is set not for the purpose of storing the print data in the image forming apparatus, but for the purpose of preventing a printed product from being left unpicked. Thus, there is a possibility that the storage time limit of print data has expired and the print data has already been deleted when the user's turn to use the image forming apparatus comes.